Digital CV

All the POM concepts I learnt is presented by a video recording. Please have a look at this link -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFJaV-p-EO0

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

Any operating organization should have its own structure in order to operate efficiently. For an organization, the organizational structure is a hierarchy of people and its functions.

The organizational structure of an organization tells you the character of an organization and the values it believes in. Therefore, when you do business with an organization or getting into a new job in an organization, it is always a great idea to get to know and understand their organizational structure.

Depending on the organizational values and the nature of the business, organizations tend to adopt one of the following structures for management purposes.

Although the organization follows a particular structure, there can be departments and teams following some other organizational structure in exceptional cases.

Sometimes, some organizations may follow a combination of the following organizational structures as well.

Functional Structure

The organization is divided into segments based on the functions when managing. This allows the organization to enhance the efficiencies of these functional groups. As an example, take a software company.

Software engineers will only staff the entire software development department. This way, management of this functional group becomes easy and effective.

Functional structures appear to be successful in large organization that produces high volumes of products at low costs. The low cost can be achieved by such companies due to the efficiencies within functional groups.

In addition to such advantages, there can be disadvantage from an organizational perspective if the communication between the functional groups is not effective. In this case, organization may find it difficult to achieve some organizational objectives at the end.

Divisional Structure

These types of organizations divide the functional areas of the organization to divisions. Each division is equipped with its own resources in order to function independently. There can be many bases to define divisions.

Divisions can be defined based on the geographical basis, products/services basis, or any other measurement.

As an example, take a company such as General Electrics. It can have microwave division, turbine division, etc., and these divisions have their own marketing teams, finance teams, etc. In that sense, each division can be considered as a micro-company with the main organization.

Matrix Structure

When it comes to matrix structure, the organization places the employees based on the function and the product.

The matrix structure gives the best of the both worlds of functional and divisional structures.

In this type of an organization, the company uses teams to complete tasks. The teams are formed based on the functions they belong to (ex: software engineers) and product they are involved in (ex: Project A).

This way, there are many teams in this organization such as software engineers of project A, software engineers of project B, QA engineers of project A, etc.

In the end, every organization needs a structure in order to operate systematically. The organizational structures can be used by any organization if the structure fits into the nature and the maturity of the organization.

Solving NAVRANG Cube

How to Solve N.A.V.R.A.N.G  CUBE:

N.A.V.R.A.N.G  Cube is a six- faced cube made up of 27 smaller cubes - there are 9 different colour cubes and for each colour set there are 3 identical cubes.The cube looks similar to RUBIC Cube. The cube is said to be solved when each of the faces has 9 different colour cubes ie. there is no repetition of same colour cube at any face.

Analogy - N.A.V.R.A.N.G Cube with Organization Management:

The solving of N.A.V.R.A.N.G cube is somewhat like solving the problems of Organisation Management. As the cubes of same traits do not appear at the same face so should not be the people or resources of same skills and characters appear at the same strata - else there may be ego clash or skill deficiency. As the colours of the rainbow or here the N.A.V.R.A.N.G Cube each strata or division of an Organisation should be made up of different types of people so that the organisation structure is holistic and multidimensional.

Solving the cube is similar solving any solution in an organization as all the steps are pre-decided and it has to be followed in the same order. If a step goes wrong whole process of Cube forming goes wrong. Same is the case with organization, one step goes wrong you have to do the whole process again.

But while doing that the management also needs to channelize these whole diverse set of resources towards the common organisation goal else it may lead to complete organizational failure.

Valley Crossing !!!

INTRODUCTION 

Have u ever been to trekking where u need to cross the big gap between you and your fate on the other side by ropeways ? You must have felt shivers down the spine after seeing the depth of the valley from above. But have ever thought of  an idea  of   crossing the valley  with  two people on either side of the valley holding a pole and the third one hanging in the middle and crossing the vast gap  underlying?
Even I did not think of this before Dr. Mandi asked us to  perform this act with marking of chalks on floor representing as valley in our POM(Principles of management)  class. This at first looked quite funny  to all but it requires a lot of management skills to get executed successfully.
  
There were many attempts but few successes.

GOAL SETTING

"The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain."
                                                                                        Kahlil Gibran

One of the important  factors which drives the whole team to unite ,to coordinate smoothly among themselves and to realize their dream is the common  objective or the common goal of the  team.The leaders play a major part  here to communicate the role of each player and the team players are equally important to understand their part in the journey.

In this valley crossing exercise all the three are equally important to set their individual roles as even  if one of them do any misinterpretation of their roles then the hanging one is bound to feel the eventuality.But even then one has to wear the  the  leader's boot and take the initiative to coordinaate properly and explain each of them the dos and donts.


THREE PILLARS OF ORGANIZATION

An organization or a team needs to differentiate the work or divide the work into specific  departments and  allot each of the department to a particular set of specialized people to make the work being done more efficiently and  effectively.The coordinator needs to integrate the divide parts into one.


Similarly,while moving forward  step by step to cross the valley,the three positions of  front ,middle and rear are like specialized departments in which a specific skill set is required.Each position should be given to that person in which  his/her role is fitting according to his/her strength.The coordinator will be the leader here who will try to  make sure that the each step is taken safely and there is no issue regarding synchronization of steps.

Another important aspect of organization is the division of  power which means whether power should be centralized or decentralized.

In this case power is distributed equally among all three as any one of them can stop the work whenever intended.

The third aspect of organization is standardisation and socialization.

The valley crossing exercise does not have specific rules and guidelines but it is  more of  an interdependent task in which every person can  switch roles if required ,help each other and  perform the task in their own way.

TEAM WORK

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
- Henry Ford

The leader of the team has to take charge and build on the unity of the team. He has to convey the message  very clearly to each member of the team what is expected out of him/her.The team cannot progress even if any one of them is out of the game.The valley can be crossed safely only if all are properly aligned to the goal and there is a unity of command line.Even the weakest link is as important as others.The team should complement each other and gel together which can increase the cohesiveness of the group helping the performance of the whole  group to go up. 

EXCELLENCE    =    EFFICIENCY   *   EFFECTIVENESS

Excellence is something which cannot be achieved by individuals but by teams of organizations.
The valley is not possible to be crossed by a single person alone.There has to be a collective effort of the three to make it happen.The efficiency of the act and the effectiveness should combine together to become a force in itself.
The right steps in the right time with right speed by the right person will determine the effectiveness of the whole team.
The  synchronization of the steps of each member with the whole system will determine the efficiency of the group.

TRUST &  BOUNDED RATIONALITY

Trust is everything here.While crossing the valley one thing that will be constantly going rounds in your mind is that you depend totally on the other two people while crossing the valley and not only that but you also depend on the pole.Therefore, it is important to trust each other because each one is interdependent and responsible for the other two.
The concept of bounded rationality comes into picture here as he has very limited knowledge about  the other people's ability to handle load and their ability to coordinate the activities properly yet he has to take decision on how he will take a calculated risk.

CONCEPTUAL,TECHNICAL AND HUMAN SKILLS

The technical skill is to  able to perform the actual task .i.e. lifting  the pole on the shoulder and carrying the 50% weight of  one of the person and 50% weight of the  pole and crossing the valley one by one with similar process of  one  person hanging by the pole and the others carrying the pole on their shoulders.


The conceptual skills are required  to understand  the aim of the whole team ,how to  reach that goal ,what are the  impending problems  that they may come across.Planning and organizing the  role of each and every person of the team is  needed to reach the goal.In this case proper coordination and synchronization of the steps are very essential.For this they need a lot of  planning, practice and power.


Human skills or interpersonal skills are essential to understand the psyche of each and every individual  to perform the task better because ultimately it is the human beings who will be crossing the valley not any trained machines or robots.A human being will be working with another human being who will have emotions like fear,tension,unhappiness,etc...

ALUMNUS - The Dependable !!!!

With increasing youth population, there has been considerable increase in competition. It is the matter of survival of the fittest. If you are running with the pace of others then you are well on the path of success else you are left way back and end up living a life of a normal man. Though there are many paths to achieve success, but every path itself has an inherent race. Choosing paths are people's choice but getting ahead of those people is your choice.

MBA is one of the most sought path and ambitious people regard it as the stepping stone towards success. People from diverse background strive for responsible positions in their respective industries. With increase in the popularity, there has been increase in number of people aspiring for the same. To cater such need, there has been introduction of new colleges with increased number of intakes. As the race has gone bigger, choice of path has also become critical. People have started focusing more on colleges of rich background, rich Alumni and of course the brand.

Strong Alumni is the best selling point for any college. Students after joining mostly get confused seeing so many options. Clarity in their minds and knowledge of the process that need to be followed to achieve what they want can only be delivered by people who have been through their path. Here comes the main role of Alumni to show the path to their juniors, give them clarity and channelize their thoughts.

On July 19, there was a session by Abhishek Kochar - pass out of NITIE (IM'12 batch) and working as Senior Consultant, KPMG - in NITIE. He gave us the insights over different Consultancy domains students can aim for. After 10 -15 min of introduction, students' questions were all over him. He calmly clarified all the doubts students had over the work culture, switching difficulties one face while going from one industry to other, hierarchies consultancy companies follow, how to come over difficult situations during work, and many more. Many students including me felt pretty much satisfied with his answers and was able to get the thinking process much clearer. At the end, there was felicitation by NITIE Alumni Committee for his insightful presence. He also took the committee for a treat as a thankful gesture.

In the end, I would like to say choosing college is your choice. So make your choice count by interacting with its Alumni as no body can give you more knowledge than the people who are pass out of that college. Alumni is always there to help their juniors it is just matter of time when they get free from their busy schedule to help them.

Three Monks Film !!!

First Look at the Video :-

The whole story is of three monks in a monastery.It depicts how they evolved one by one slowly  and tried out different methods in their day to day work of  bringing water to the monastery .

There are three scenarios:

1st scenario:

In this case,the first monk goes down the hill with two empty  buckets  at the two sides of  the stick  and fills it with water and carries it back uphil to the monastery.

2nd scenario:

In the second case ,  there are two monks carrying a single bucket downhill by holding a stick from two sides with the bucket hanging in the middle.Then they fill it with water and  bring it uphill.

3rd sccenario:


Here,there are three monks  using pulley  and rope to lift the water from below and each of them doing a specific job i.e. one of them filling water  and tying it to the rope ,other one lifting the bucket with the help of a rope and deattaches the rope and the third one takes it to the monastery ,empties it and brings it back to the second person.

INNOVATION:


The transformation of the first method to the second method shows continuous innovation and the third method shows drastic innovation.


Continuous innovation does need  fundamental change in the dynamics of  the process ,it updates or enhances the existing one whereas Drastic innovation is the complete out of the box thinking that can altogether add a new dimension to the overall efficiency.




Similarly in a business scenario,continuous and drastic innovation can spur an organization towards success by integrating business,organizational,process,technology,marketing and product innovation.




                                     


Theory X and Theory Y :


Here ,it is proved that monks are like  theory X employees as they did  not want to work when others are present displaying lazy and lacklustre attitude.They will only work when there is someone with a stick in his hand in front of them.Similar thing happened in this story when there was disastrous fire in the temple,it led to a dangerous situation which gave them a virtual kick in their back to bring water.



TEAMWORK:


The  interpretation of the story espouses the virtue of teamwork and organizational planning.Without these virtues they looked like a lost lot.


Synergy is what helps all the members of the team to use their potential to the fullest and  display a result which  is more than the sum of  the potential of all the members.


It fetches far greater output than all the individual outputs summed  up because teamwork leads to more creativity,more dedication and motivation and growth of superior decision making ability.

This was the case when all of them had put a determined effort to stop the fire.They came up with a creative idea of using a pulley and rope to lift water to such a height from below without  much effort .The scientific management came into play as they were able to find out the best technical method possible to do the work with the limited resources.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

When there were three monks,each of them expected that some or the other would bring the water but atlast none of them turned up.But when there was fire in the temple ,all of them together devised a plan to extinguish it selflessly.This shows that when in danger ,people tend to understand that unity is strength and it also leads to springing up of new innovative ideas.

Being SMART is the Need !!!

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Why Set Goals?

Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set.

GOALS Should be SMART :- 

A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. SMART usually stands for:

Specific :- For example, instead of “I want to be rich and famous,” say, “I will be generating revenues in excess of $500,000 by 2015 and will have written 3 articles for major publications by January 2014.”

Measurable :- Instead of “I want to be thinner by next year,” say, “I will lose 15 pounds by January 2013.”

Actionable :- Setting goals that are attainable or achievable is a key consideration. Success can motivate us to achieve more. 

Realistic :- Personal goals must be relevant and important or you won’t have the commitment or energy to follow through. 

Timed :- Even those of us who claim we don’t need timelines or deadlines to accomplish our goals typically benefit from some timing structure. Missing a deadline provides an opportunity to reassess or refine the goal statement.

So when you make your goals next time make them SMART and see the outcome.